Dive Bars

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Recently, The Village Voice published an article on Dive Bars in New York City -- here's the link:
New York's Best Dive Bars

Do you have a dive bar in your area? Have you ever been? Any interesting stories?

Back in the pre-Giuliani days of NYC, many of the dive bars existed in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan. A buddy of mine had a much older brother who was a member of The Westies (they were Irish) and my buddy's brother advised me to stay out of the bars in that area because, "every glass of beer is served with a free pair of boxing gloves". He was a pretty tough guy, so I took his advice.

[Chicago Jake]

Irishmen who drink and fight? I can't believe that.

We used to have a great dive bar in my neighborhood, called Sterch's. I've mentioned it on this board before. It was the only dive in a sea of yuppie bars here in the DePaul campustown where I live. There was a (hand lettered) sign in the window that said "No Corona. No foolish drinks. Limited dancing." The denizens were mostly old dudes and dames drinking shots and beers.

Alas, about a year ago, they decided to try to yuppie themselves up. That was the end of the line, as they went out of business a few months later.

[Merlot Joe]

We used to have a great dive bar. The Brass Rail. Old wooden floors with a great big bar, old style juke box, $1.00 drinks on Thursday nights and open from 6:00AM to 2:00AM. All the local drunks used to hang out there. Ironically it was taken down to put up a new yuppie bar for all the tourist.

[Ardbeg... innit]

We have a great little bar in town that we visit still on occasion (though I did shut the place down many times as a student).

Ambassador Bar

The ceilings/walls are covered with a series of murals from the 19th century, the theme is gnomes brewing, consuming, and living with the results of brewing beer. The rumor is that if you drink the proper amount of beer in an evening, they will talk to you.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

That place seems too quaint to qualify as a dive bar.

[Ardbeg... innit]

Your probably right, but what it has in charm it makes up for in clientele

[Chicago Jake]

So what are the requirements for a bar to be a "dive"? The linked article attempts to describe it, but their description is more poetic than operational. What do you guys think makes a bar a dive?

[♥ COVID-19♥]

Atmosphere, location and customers.

Compared to The Ambassador, the closest I ever saw to a dive bar having any artwork was the smears of blood on the wall from the last fight -- very Jackson Pollock, if you know what I mean (and I suspect you do).

[Chicago Jake]

We used to have a real dive in Chicago called "Tuman's Alcohol Abuse Center." The name, while misleading, was 100% accurate.

[♥ COVID-19♥]

I disagree -- I don't think the name was misleading at all. It was a center FOR the abuse of alcohol.

Now if it had the word "Rehabilitation" or "Treatment" before the word "Center", *that* would be misleading.

[nolaflacav]

Oct 20, 2010 11:38:40 GMT -6 innit Geezer said:

Coyote Ugly meets the "dive" standard in my opinion. While it doesn't have fights it's certainly physically dirty enough. The ceiling is covered by scary looking woman's underwear and the bathrooms are flat out gross.

The only off criteria is it's corporate owned and well marketed.

I cannot tolerate flat out gross bathrooms. We were hanging out in a bar/dive at the back end of the French Quarter one evening. We determined that the bathroom was too gross to use. And we also felt it was too far to walk.

My buddy walked a half block away to a 24 hour grocery store and somehow managed to steal a brand new garbage can. It was one of those shiny metal ones.

We stuck the garbage in the far corner of the bar and for the remainder of the evening encouraged all the clientele to pee into the garbage can when needed. Bets were taken and marks were made on the side of the can as to how far one thought it would be filled by closing time.

And yes we had several women who participated in our experiment. It is amazing how alcohol affects your sensibilities.

This place in my mind was the perfect definition of a dive.